Crochet the Giza Placemat

I feel like last weekend I become a real adult. What did I do I hear you ask? I bought a fruit bowl.

Something about owning a decorative bowl purely for the purpose of ripening and storing fruit outside of the fridge rather than just leaving them out on the counter makes me feel like a grown up.

When I got my glorious fruit bowl home, I realised the bottom of bowl was unglazed ceramic. How was I going to stop it from scratching my dining table? A crochet placemat of course!

Read on to find out how you can make one of your own…

WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

Cotton yarn – I used Lily Sugar N Cream in White and Bernat Handicrafter DeLux in Seaspray as the contrast borderIf you’re only going to use it for something like a fruit bowl, then any type of yarn is fine. But if you think you may want to put anything heated on it in the future, make sure you use something heat resistant like cotton – nothing worse than accidentally melting an acrylic yarn!

5mm crochet hook (or appropriate for your yarn size)

Scissors to trim

Yarn needle to weave in ends

STITCHES YOU’LL NEED TO KNOW:

Chain – CH

Double crochet – DC (treble crochet in UK/AU terms)

Slip stitch – SLIP

What are you waiting for? Let’s get started!

For this project we’ll be working in rounds, using a slip stitch to close the end of each row.

Set-up Round: Chain 6, and slip stitch into the first chain to join into a circle.

Round 2: Ch 2 (this imitates 1 x dc), dc; *Dc into the chain space from the previous round, 2 x ch, dc into same chain space, 2 x dc*; repeat ** 6 times, [on the 6th repeat, you won’t need to do the last 2 dcs after the chain space, as you did these at the beginning]; slip stitch to close the round (total of 24 dc and 12 ch)

Now you could leave it here if you want a more geometric, clean feel; but let’s be honest, when have I ever let a project finish without at least a touch of fruff?

To finish, cut 12 medium length strands of colour B; these can be any length you want, mine were about 10 cm long, just remember to allow a bit of extra as you can always trim later but you can’t add back! Holding 2 at a time, fold over in half and feed through the corner in between your 2 dcs, feed the ends through the loop created by the fold and pull to tighten. This creates a little mini tassel, but you could always add a more full tassel if you would like, or something else like a pom pom.